Star Wars Weekends Week 3 Recap

So week 3 has come and gone. I do want to start by apologizing for the lack of coverage of week 3. This was the one weekend where my everyday life couldn’t be put on hold for some Star Wars fun. I did miss both Friday and Saturday, but I did make it on Sunday. Unfortunately, i was unable to stay for a long period of time, I actually had to leave before lunch, but the time I did spend there didn’t go to waste! It started very early as I rushed to Disney to get my autograph fast pass for mr John Ratzenberger. The world knows him as Cliff Clavin from the hot tv show Cheers, as the voice of multiple characters in multiple Pixar movies, like Mack Truck in Cars, Hamm in the Toy Story trilogy, and more. What a lot of people didn’t realize, was that he was also Major Bren Derlin in The Empire Strikes Back.

From the autograph ticket lines, I met up with my friend Angelo, Robbie’s brother, and we had a nice breakfast in the park. I had a breakfast of champions: a double chocolate chip muffin and a Coke. This was the best double chocolate chip muffin i have ever had! A great conversation ensued about plans for Celebration Anaheim and possible attendance of Tampa Bay Comic Con which is around the corner.

The Breakfast of Champions

From there, it was off to the races! The autograph races that is. This is where we split up, Angelo had been at Hollywood Studios the day before and met John Ratzenberger then, and had gotten a ticket for Taylor Gray, Ezra Bridger from Star Wars Rebels. I took my place in line and soon there after, was shaking hands with Cliff Clavin himself! Amazing man, full of great talent. We spent most of the time actually talking about Coffee With Kenobi. He liked the shirt, thought the name was smart, and wanted to know whether it was Dan or Cory did Obi-Wan impressions during the show. Laughingly I told him neither, we had James Arnold Taylor for that. He laugh and replied “Oh yeah, that guy. He’s here this week, isn’t he.” After a brief discussion about Cheers while he signed the autograph, we took a pic and that was it.

John Ratzenberger and I

I was noticing it was not as busy a day in the park as usual, so instead of leaving then, I took off to see if I could try to do a walk up autograph on Taylor Gray. When I got to his line, there were about 8 people in front of me waiting on a possible walk up so I was thinking my chances were slim, especially since his scheduled session was to end in 20 minutes and there was still a line of guaranteed autographs before us. I waited in the humid Florida heat and my perseverance paid off. I, along with the 8 others waiting, were given a walk up opportunity. Disney officials told us to make it quick since he had to get to the motorcade, but they didn’t tell that to Taylor, who took his time talking to each one of us like he had all the time in the world. He asked what I did with the show and then we talked all Rebels. He is genuinely excited about Rebels and it shows! I’m amazed at this cast Dave Filoni has put together. They are all true fans of what they are apart of. He signed the headshot, we took a picture and as I walked off, told him we would love to have in on CWK sometime. Fingers crossed y’all, i know you would love to hear what he has to say about Rebels!

Taylor Gray and I

Short and sweet, that ends my week 3 experiences. I’ll post any videos from week 3 that Gian posts in a blog shortly. I do promise you a lot more for week 4. After all, with Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Ray Parks, and Taylor Gray as guests, it’s going to be a mad house! There will be a lot more pics, a lot more stories and of course more fun to be had!
So if you have questions, comments or if you are going to be attending Star Wars Weekends during weeks 4 or 5 and want to meet up, email me at aharris@coffeewithkenobi.com or find me on Twitter @taharris121079.